Anyone know how long I can safely keep these cheeses unrefrigerated? I would like to eat them on crackers with salmon for lunches. If these aren't good, what do people do for cream cheese? I've seen "recipes" for crackers and cream cheese in the lunches recipe book.

Laughing cow cheese is a great cheese to take in. The stuff that comes in those little pie shaped foil wraps do not need to be refrigerated.

If your looking for other cheeses to take it, you would not have any problem taking in a good block of cheddar either. Just keep it wrapped up tight. If your concerned about it getting moldy, handle it with clean hands. More often than not, cheese develops mold when handled by dirty hands.

Another option if your looking for good shelf stable cheese it to swing by a Hickory Farms store and grab some of them cheeses that they sell in them gift baskets.

We brought in the little individual tubs of cream cheese last year for a four day trip in mid August. They were fine in the middle of the food pack alongside the eggs.

I know I have seen them for sale at Costco in the Twin Cities area. Other grocery stores likely have them as well. (We did an outfitted trip last summer so we didn't purchase them ourselves but I am planning to buy some later this summer for our July camping trip so I hope they aren't hard to find!)

OK.

I like the idea of the little Laughing Cow wedges because I think we could just smear some on a cracker and not have to use a knife.

I buy the wedges for my lunch all the time. My Walmart does not have them refrigerated and it says on the package to refrigerate after opening. Been eating the for the past three years and still kicking.

I figure the worst that could happen is it would get moldy, right?

ok, so, it is midnight and after reading this thread, I went to the kitchen and got the Laughing Cow and Crackers. My disc of cheese says "refrigerate after purchase" on the bottom. So, if you don't purchase it - it doesn't need refrigeration? Odd statement to put on the package.

Grandma L...I bought two packages of this cheese the other day. They were in a dairy case at the store. I looked at the bottom of these packages today. One says keep refrigerated and one says refrigerate after purchase. (agree it's odd...but I have seen that before.)

quote Grandma L: "ok, so, it is midnight and after reading this thread, I went to the kitchen and got the Laughing Cow and Crackers. My disc of cheese says "refrigerate after purchase" on the bottom. So, if you don't purchase it - it doesn't need refrigeration? Odd statement to put on the package."

Thought the same thing when I read it the other day. I must assume they prefer it to be refrigerated but if they wrote "keep refrigerated" on the package, it would bind them to refrigerate it during distribution, thus increasing costs. Someone at Laughing Cow must have done cost/benefit on it and decided "refrigerate after purchase" was most effective.

That said, I'll risk it. I'm not sure what percent is real cheese...sure tastes good though.

I looked at my packages some more. One says it's regular cream cheese wedges. The other is a flavored cheese, and it lists it as pasturized. The cream cheese does not say that, and it's the one that says to keep refrigerated. We tried the crackers/cheese/salmon this weekend, and we preferred the flavored cheese, so we'll just take that one...the "refrigerate after purchase" option.